


Puppy Teeth

by Tiss



Series: this crown has teeth [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, An Epilogue Of Sorts?, Armiger Etiquette, Awkward Conversations, Brother-Sister Relationships, Cultural Differences, Drabble Collection, Family Feels, Fluff and Humor, Gen, M/M, Mischievous Werewolf Pups, Werewolves VS Pet Policies in Stores, just chaos, no consistency, no logic, weird experimental prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24094900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiss/pseuds/Tiss
Summary: Random drabbles for the Capitolines 'verse.
Relationships: Clarus Amicitia & Gladiolus & Iris Amicitia's Mother, Clarus Amicitia & Gladiolus Amicitia, Gladiolus Amicitia & Cor Leonis, Gladiolus Amicitia & Gladiolus & Iris Amicitia's Mother, Gladiolus Amicitia & Iris Amicitia, Gladiolus Amicitia & Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Gladiolus Amicitia/Noctis Lucis Caelum, Iris Amicitia & Gladiolus & Iris Amicitia's Mother, Sylva Via Fleuret & Regis Lucis Caelum
Series: this crown has teeth [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738378
Comments: 52
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember those photos from Chapter 5?

**1.**

Gladio is being his absolute most quiet.

Cor has very, very sharp hearing. All other times, Gladio has been caught before he could reach his goal.

Not today.

Today, Gladio left his shoes by the garden doors and picked a line of approach that would disturb the least amount of grass. He made sure that he was downwind, and that his shadow wouldn’t fall on any part of Cor at any moment.

He’s got it.

His mom is crouching nearby with a camera and a thumbs-up.

Quiet. Slow and quiet.

Cor’s whiskers twitch, and Gladio freezes.

Quiet!

He holds his breath, and Cor keeps sleeping, and Gladio inches forward another little bit.

The camera shutter sounds out of the blue, and he turns his most betrayed face on his mom. She grins, sheepish, and nods at Cor.

Cor is still asleep.

Phew.

There’s just a little bit more left. Just a little bit...

Three things happen at the same time: Gladio grabs Cor’s ear, the camera goes off again, and Cor swooshes up with a growl.

Gladio _runs_.

He takes off along the manor wall, random pebbles stinging his socked feet with every other step. It hardly matters. Not when Gladio has to _get away_ , and _now_.

He dares a glance back over his shoulder.

Cor is _fast_.

Gladio yelps and wolfs out without really thinking, just with the burning drive to _run run run_. His hind legs get tangled in his shorts, so he kicks it all off without stopping. There’s no time to stop.

He can hear Cor’s paws hitting the ground behind him.

He skids around a corner and almost bowls over Jared, who yells in surprise and jumps out of the way. Gladio doesn’t stop. He has his salvation in sight: the open door back into the house.

Several pieces of furniture wobble and go down in his wake. The threat of being in even more trouble just makes him go faster.

Deep into the manor, he finally allows himself to slow down. He can’t hear anyone chasing after him anymore. He could go hide in his room for a little while, but door handles are really tricky to manage with paws and he’s lost his pants somewhere. And Mom’s really strict about pants.

It’s all part of the game, but a game’s no fun if you remember it’s not for real.

He turns a corner, and there’s his dad’s study.

The door’s ajar.

Gladio squeezes through the gap and pushes the door back to almost-closed with his nose, and when he turns around, his dad’s looking straight at him from behind his desk. Gladio yips, startled. He hadn’t heard his dad at all, and it’s not like he can tell where he is by scent when most of the house smells like him.

Gladio stares at his dad.

His dad stares back.

The door swings open soundlessly behind Gladio, and he yelps again and whirls around.

He forgot that Cor can be quiet, too.

His dad, when Gladio raises big, imploring eyes to him, just tells them to, “Learn something from this.”

His mom, when Cor brings him back dangling from his mouth by the scruff and the edge of his t-shirt, laughs at him and takes another photo.

Gladio pouts as well as he can, without any cheeks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4, a glimpse into the past.

**2.**

“Ma’am, I’m sorry but dogs are not allowed in the store.”

“He’s not a dog, though.”

The clerk looks at the huge, hairy, definitely four-legged animal standing halfway across the threshold. It’s the most tired-looking dog he’s ever seen.

“Respectably, ma’am, I’m pretty sure that’s a dog.”

“No, look, I have his ID here.”

“Ma’am, that’s a man’s ID.”

“Yes, and he’s a werewolf.”

Silence.

Then, while the clerk is still processing that last bit of dialogue, the dog huffs an exasperated (exasperated!) sigh and turns around.

“Clarus! Where do you think _you’re_ going?”

‘Clarus’ turns its head to level the woman with a tired stare, sighs again, and walks out of the shop.

Someone’s going to need a drink after work today.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6, side view. Regis and Sylva drink the good stuff and talk.

**3.**

“I’m sorry about your husband,” Regis says after dinner, once they’ve settled into armchairs with a glass of brandy each. Their children are off doing their own thing. They’re old enough to mind themselves; Regis really needs to remember that.

Queen Sylva stares into the fireplace for a long moment, unmoving.

“I loved him as much as I could ever love a man,” she says finally, and Regis gives an understanding little _ah_.

He isn’t jealous of the man. Thirty, forty years ago, yes, he would’ve been. He knows better now. Being wed to Sylva would’ve left him bitter with self-loathing, eventually, regardless of any adolescent infatuation he might have felt with her. He knows exactly how much she had sacrificed, consenting to marry a man. What she must’ve had to tolerate, to have born not one, but two children by him.

He wouldn’t have forgiven himself, had he been the one to do that to her.

“He was a good husband, and a valuable source of support,” says Sylva, and takes a sip to signal the topic closed.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

“Gladdy!”

Gladdy goes _oomph_ on impact; good. She’ll be strong enough to topple him soon.

“Hey, Iris.”

The schoolyard is loud with the noise of other kids heading home.

Iris looks up at her brother and smiles the happiest grin she can manage.

“What?” he asks.

“Do you have snacks? I’m hungry.”

Gladdy looks at her with a weird expression, but it’s not a scary one, so it’s alright.

“Fine, fine,” he sighs and shakes his head, and then pulls a granola bar out of his bag. Face strict, he offers it with the words, “You only get half. I wanted to eat the rest myself. And _don’t_ , drop it.”

Iris nods so hard her hair hits her in the face.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gladio makes good on that promise to keep Noct in bed for a week from Chapter 7.

**5.**

“Gladio, I have to get up.”

“Nmph.”

“Gladio. I have a meeting in thirty minutes. It’s actually important this time.”

A sigh, long and sleepy.

Gladio looks asleep, sure, but his hold on Noctis is steel-tight.

Freaking Amicitia steel, uh-huh.

What is this, role reversal?

“Gladio, lemme up. C’mon. Leggo. Drop it.”

Gladio mumbles something unintelligible into Noctis’ side, and Noctis pokes him in the shoulder.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Gladio raises his head and enunciates, grumpy and bleary, “It hasn’t been a week. You’re not going anywhere,” and then tucks his face back into Noctis’ side.

Noctis flops back down.

He really does need to get to that meeting. He has a whole speech prepared.

Exasperated, he asks, “Do I have to resort to the ‘desperate girlfriend’ measures?”

Wordlessly, Gladio raises his head again, stares at Noctis for a long, intense moment, and, in between one blink and the next, wolfs out, and then Noctis is buried under two hundred pounds of furry canine.

Gladio has a _lot_ of fur.

Noctis groans.

“You don’t actually get any heavier when you’re wolf, you know that, right?” he wheezes out. “You’re just as heavy.”

Gladio just blinks at him, brown eyes smug and lazy, and stretches his head over Noctis’ shoulder. His throat ends up nestled somewhere around one of his pectorals; his muzzle, tucked into the pillows. Well, he certainly gets bigger.

All that fur _tickles_.

Noctis needs to get up, and that’s fact.

Desperate times, and all that.

“Hey, Gladio,” says Noctis as his hand reaches over the wolf’s head and towards his whiskers, “You asked for it.”


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

“Son. Noctis. As family, I’ll allow myself to be blunt. What is a bottle of lubricant doing in the Armory?”

“…Didn’t we agree not to talk about what the other puts in the Armory?”

“I'm afraid I don’t recall that conversation.”

“Uh-huh. It was when you put used women’s underwear in there, and I pulled it out by accident together with my homework.”

“…Very well. Let’s shelve the issue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why didn't Regis blame it on the Crownsfang? Well, because when people get embarrassed, they sometimes get really stupid.
> 
> Noct never stored lube in the Armory again after that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris was a hungry little pup.

**7.**

Lilian wakes to the sound of high-pitched, plaintive whining.

Clarus doesn’t even stir next to her, so she drags herself up and out of bed and blearily stumbles over to the room opposite theirs. The nursery is still done up in the calm forest theme that Gladio had seemed to like. He’d run his tiny fingers over the trees on the walls, trace the branches and drag his toys and pillows over to where the boughs left gaps in the pattern. “Den,” he’d explain proudly.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have let him watch all those nature documentaries.

Iris doesn’t seem as excited about all the greenery, but at least it doesn’t scare her.

Waiting for Lilian in the crib, though, is an Iris-sized puppy, fluffy and almost black with that young-pup coloring.

As soon as Lilian comes in, the whining cuts off.

Eyes glowing with the reflected light from the hallway, Iris blinks up at her and yips.

“Now, what’s the matter,” she asks softly.

Her daughter whines.

Lilian sighs.

“Use your words, Iris. Remember?”

It used to weird her out with Gladio, when her baby cried for her with whines and yips instead of wails and sniffles. It still does, just a little, but she can handle worse things. If she can stare down a growling Clarus, in all his six-feet-in-the-shoulder glory, she can soothe her own children without freezing. So what if it’s an ongoing struggle. So what.

Reluctantly, after a few seconds of mildly sullen silence, Iris shifts and mumbles, “Hunwy.”

With another sigh and a grunt of effort, Lilian lifts her out; Iris clings to her immediately.

“Let’s go find something to eat, then.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what even is this

**8.**

The day stretches out, redolent and still and barely stirring. Gladio stretches out, boneless and at peace.

He misses it, to be honest

the layout of his body when it has paws instead of feet

the smells of water and soil, and grass and summer wildflowers that swamp his nose

thick

fragrant

he hates the smell of perfume, and the way it pretends to be real

Something splashes in the river.

He doesn’t do this often enough.

but it’s not as interesting to do it alone.

the sound of a spinner reel, buzzing like a bee in overdrive

the sounds of insects, an endless trembling rattling pitchless note, and other insects, up and down, in and out

grass rustling, barely

birds, hunting

cicadas

Noct hisses a swear.

Stubborn fish. Give it up. You’ll be dinner.

Even to a werewolf’s nose, water just smells wet. Sometimes green.

A breeze skims by, ruffles the fur on his neck.

Noct hisses, in triumph.

Why don’t they do this more often?

he can’t remember

sound of water

smell of grass

sun

heat

time, looping on itself without seams in lemniscates

summer

time

he dozes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nvm


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

“ _Mama_!”

A small body impacts into Luna’s knees and clings. It’s a warm, mama-seeking missile.

“Why, hello,” she murmurs.

The nannies bow to her and step back, to give them privacy to bond.

“ _Mama_ ,” the body whines and buries its head in her knees.

‘Now, let me say hello to my son properly,” she says and, when the body lets her, crouches.

Her son looks at her from under his mussed bangs, squints for a moment, and says to her in Lucian, with the rhythm of long practice, “It’s an hon – hon – honor to, uh… To welcome you back.” He thinks for a moment and tacks on, “Mother.”

“Thank you,” says Luna, smiling, “but that is not quite what I meant.”

She spreads her arms a bit and reaches out to her son, and he flies into the hug without hesitation.

Luna presses her cheek to her son’s hair and breathes in the soft shampoo-and-childhood smell of him. It’s a precious, precious smell.

Hand in hand, they walk, two heads of bright blond in the black marble halls of the Citadel. Luna’s son prattles in Tenebraise with nary a stop, but little finesse, describing to her everything that occurs to his young mind. He speaks Lucian to his father and Tenebraise to his mother, as if it were a game. Or rather, he tries to, at least. There are quite a few gaps in his knowledge. She doesn’t bother correcting him. He’ll learn in his own time.

They amble along, and in the stream of toddler news her son is letting loose, he lets slip an excited, “I saw _papa_ kiss Uncle Di!”

“Hmm, did you, now?” Luna asks mildly.

“Uh-huh!”

“And do you know what a kiss is?”

“Umm…”

The troubled expression on her son’s face is cute to Luna in its naivety, but she’d rather he not feel troubled at all. It’s a futile hope, she knows.

“It’s when… Lips…”

He trails off, confused.

“You kiss people you love, to show them. Like this,” and she bends down to brush a kiss on the soft crown of her son’s head.

_How long will he let me do that,_ she wonders, and straightens up.

Immediately, he begins to chant, “Mama, mama,” and reaches out to her until she bends down again; when she does, he grasps her face between his hands and pecks her forehead. He tries to reach higher, but can’t.

Her son might have been the best thing she got out of this marriage. Better than the modernized hospitals and boosted scientific progress for Tenebrae, even.

At the doors to Luna’s suite, Gladio is waiting.

“Uncle Di!”

Her son lets go of her hand and darts forward to glomp onto Gladio’s knees

“Someone’s in a huggy mood today,” Gladio chuckles down at him.

He hoists her son up and sits him on his arm, and the boy grabs onto the strap on Gladio’s shoulder with an iron grip and rubs his face on his jacket.

It warms Luna’s heart like nothing else, to see her son so loved.

“Hey,” Gladio greets her.

“The trip was quite fine, Gladio, thank you,” she teases.

Gladio quirks an eyebrow at her, and she lets the smile show.

“All quiet here,” he tells her, and then, after scanning the hallway with a glance, adds, “the beer lobby is up to something, but I’ll be an augur if I know what.”

She’s gotten used to Gladio’s curt manner over the years. Of course, by Tenebraean standards, most Lucians are curt and no-nonsense ninety percent of the time. For a Lucian, though, Gladio is downright cordial.

“I told _mama_ that _papa_ kissed you,” bursts out of her son.

Gladio cringes.

Luna tries her hardest to hold in a giggle.

“Uh-huh,” he says, and, with a sheepish glance at Luna, asks, “and what did mama say?”

“Uh… I dunno? She kissed me here,” and he pats the spot on Gladio’s head. “And then I kissed her, too.”

For a moment, Gladio stares at her son with an unreadable expression, but then it melts, all the way into a fond _what am I going to do with you_.

“Alright,” he sighs. “But don’t just tell people about all the kisses you see, yeah? That’s private.” Then he looks up at Luna and frowns. “Sorry about that.”

“Whatever for?”

He shifts around, weight and eyes both, and mumbles, “You know what.”

Curtness aside, many parts of Gladio are irritatingly Lucian. She has no idea what to do with them. Take, for example, this persistent idea of his that she should resent him for being a loving and reliable partner to her husband whom she married for political reasons.

Luna is well aware she is not exactly the model Tenebraean in that respect, either, thank you.

“Time and again, Gladio,” Luna smiles at him, a touch exasperated, but mostly amused. “How many times do I need to tell you?”

“At least a couple more,” he grumbles. “Doesn’t feel right to rub it in your face.”

“And I keep telling you, it hurts me none,” she insists. “I would rather know that two of my dear friends are happy than worry about it.”

There’s a brief pause where Gladio stares at her much in the same way he was staring at her son just now – pretty much unreadable, which probably means either confused or disbelieving, or both.

“Friends, huh,” he murmurs to himself at last; Luna catches it anyway.

Honestly. She’d thought they were past that.

“Is the title not to your liking?”

A hint of surprise flickers across Gladio’s face, to change into a warm, companionable sort of emotion.

“Never said that,” he smiles.

Luna will count that as a win.

They’ll get there eventually.


End file.
